How To Disable Right Click In WordPress – 3 Methods

If you want to disable right-clicking on your WordPress website, it’s most likely to protect your content and your images. And even though you’ll never be able to protect yourself 100%, you can get pretty close by using one of these 3 methods and the extra tips.

Head over to your WordPress admin section, go to Plugins -> Add new, and search for WP Content Copy Protection & No Right Click. Install and activate the plugin, and you’ve now disabled right-clicking on your entire WordPress website. Both your posts, images and pages are protected.

This is just one of the 3 methods you can do this, there are 2 plugins which I have tested and I can recommend based on my experience, and then I have added a custom way to disable right-clicking if you don’t wish to install a WordPress plugin.

Why disable right click in WordPress

Before we dive into the methods, I just want to highlight some of the reasons why you would disable right-clicking.

If you have a lot of original content, original research, and just a lot of valuable content, then you would want to protect it, and disabling right-clicking is a start to do it. You won’t be able to completely protect your content as there will always be a way for people to get to it, but you’ll protect it from the majority.

More experienced people would be able to open up the developer panel in the browser and get to all your content through that. Even screenshotting your content and copying the text from the screenshot is possible now. And, of course, screenshot your images as well.

So, all in all, right-clicking will protect your content from the majority, but bear in mind it doesn’t protect it completely, and you’ll never be able to. However, there are ways you can protect your content with the copyright law. I’ll dive more into that in the bottom section of the article.

1. Use the WordPress plugin WP Content Copy Protection & No Right Click

The first plugin I would recommend you to go with is WP Content Copy Protection & No Right Click. It’s the most used WordPress plugin to disable right-clicking, with more than 100.000 active installations and great reviews.

It’s a super simple plugin which has both a free version and a premium version. You will be able to fully disable right-clicking with the free version except right-clicking on links, but that I personally see as a minor thing.

WP Content Copy Protection & No Right Click

It’s very simple to set up; you just go to your WordPress admin section -> plugins -> add new, and then you search for the title of the plugin. Install and activate the plugin, and your website is now completely secured against right-clicking.

If you’re using a caching plugin, remember to empty the cache after installing the plugin, as that could conflict once you test your website to see if you can right-click or not.

2. Use the WordPress plugin Disable Right Click For WP

Another simple WordPress plugin is Disable Right Click For WP. It’s not as well known as WP Content Copy Protection & No Right Click, but it’s a simpler plugin just doing what it’s promising: disabling right-clicking on your website.

To install it, go to your WordPress admin area -> plugins -> Add new and search for disable right click. Install and activate the plugin. Now, your website is protected against right-clicking. You can go to settings -> Disable right click if you want to enable an error message on right click.

Disable Right Click For WP

Inserting an error message can both be a good and a bad thing. It shows up front that you don’t allow people to copy your content and that you’re aware of it. But it can also tell people that you have disabled right-click, and they’ll, therefore, go to different measures to get to your content.

Both Disable Right Click For WP and Disable Right click for WP also disable shortcuts to open the developer panel, which is an extra security layer. On top of this, then, both plugins disable text selection as well.

3. Use A Custom Code Snippet To Disable Right Click In WordPress

Now if you think a lot about performance on your WordPress website and want to keep your amount of WordPress plugins to a minimum, then this is the method you should use.

To disable right-clicking without using a plugin, add a custom script to your WordPress theme via the theme editor, which you find in the Appearance menu in your WordPress admin area. I will recommend you add it in the header.php or the footer.php, depending on what files your theme has.

<script type="text/javascript">

jQuery(document).ready(function () {

// Disable copy, paste and cut on the entire website

jQuery('body').bind('copy paste cut', function (e) {

e.preventDefault();

});

//Disable right-click with the mouse on the entire website

jQuery("body").on("contextmenu",function(e){

return false;

});

});

</script>

If you don’t have either a header.php file or a footer.php, then you’ll have to use the functions.php file and simply wrap your JavaScript code snippet with a PHP function and add it to the bottom of your functions.php file. It looks like this:

add_action('wp_head', 'disable_right_click');
function disable_right_click() {

?>

<script type="text/javascript">

jQuery(document).ready(function () {

// Disable copy, paste and cut on the entire website

jQuery('body').bind('copy paste cut', function (e) {

e.preventDefault();

});

//Disable right-click with the mouse on the entire website

jQuery("body").on("contextmenu",function(e){

return false;

});

});

</script>

<?php
}

If you want to see how you add code to your functions.php file, then you can see my video guide on it in my article on how to add meta tags automatically via the WordPress theme file editor.

Tips on how you can protect your content further

Use the correct Copyright notice

In your footer, you should always add a copyright sentence for your website. This will protect all of your content. Add the name of your business or website, including the year.

It would look something like this: Copyright © 2023 {your business}. All rights reserved.

You can go even a step further and add copyright below all your images. Every time you add an image to your website, you get the opportunity to write a caption. In this caption, you can add your copyright as well. This makes it more challenging to screenshot and protects you even further.

Set up a Creative Commons license

With a Creative Commons license, you can define what can and cannot be done with your content and images. It’s a free license to obtain, and they have a very easy guide to follow to get this license. You can read more about obtaining a free Creative Commons license in their section on Choosing a license.

You get many benefits from this license, as Creative Commons will help you in whatever situation you’re in. However, I still will recommend you take other measures to protect your content, and you have to add the copyright notice.

Watermark all your images

Watermarking your images basically makes your images unusable for other people as it’ll have your logo watermarked into the image. This is the biggest step you can take to protect your images.

That said, it also ruins the experience of your images as they will have a watermark and won’t be free and shown as how you intended them to be. I have made an example below.

If you want to go in this direction, then I can recommend you download the WordPress plugin Rank Math SEO. You get a lot more than a watermark generator for all your images, and you get a fully-fledged SEO plugin. You can read their guide about watermarks.

Disable hotlinking

Hotlinking is when someone from another website tries to use your images by linking directly to your website.

Now, if you’re using a CDN already, a content delivery network, then you’re already protected against this. Or if you’re using Cloudflare for your domain and DNS, you get this as well.

Alternatively, you can install the WordPress plugin All In One WP Security & Firewall, which will take care of this for you.

All-In-One Security (AIOS) – Security and Firewall

Again, if you want to disable hotlinking manually to avoid having to install another WordPress plugin and affect your performance, then you can do it by editing your .htaccess file via an FTP client like FileZilla.

Simply open it up in a file editor and add the following. Be aware if “RewriteEngine On” is already in your file, and then you don’t need to add it once again.

RewriteEngine on

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http(s)?://(www.)?yourwebsite.com [NC]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http(s)?://(www.)?google.com [NC]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http(s)?://(www.)?bing.com [NC]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http(s)?://(www.)?yahoo.com [NC]

Just remember, every time there is a new website where you want your images, you’ll have to add them to this file. For instance, the search engine DuckDuckGo wouldn’t be able to use your images without being added to the .htaccess file.

Use a Plagiarism checker monthly

To check on a monthly basis if someone is using your content, then you can simply go to Copyscape, enter your domain and hit enter. Copyscape then scans the web for any similar content and tells you what it finds.

As you can see, I ran it for my domain, and it didn’t find any results, which is a good thing. You don’t want to see any results after running the Copyscape Search.

Set up Automatic Content Copy Alerts

When people use your content or images, they sometimes add your domain name, business name or personal name. You can set up Google Alerts for these words, so every time these words are mentioned on websites other than your own, then you get an email.

It’s super simple to set up and maintain. You can always tweak it to your needs, and add plus remove it like you want the alerts to run.

Simply enter the search phrase you want an alert for, and press create an alert. You can choose the sources, how often you want the alert and much more.

Password Protect your content

Now, this step you need to be careful with, but it’s a way to 100% fully protect your content. You can set up password protection for your pages and posts by using only WordPress. This is done in the right section under “Visibility.

That is the most simple way, but this also prevents search engines like Google from accessing your content, and you won’t rank organically on Google.

Another way is to install a membership plugin in your WordPress setup, where you can control on different levels how you want your content to be password protected. You can see the 8 Best Free WordPress Membership Plugins here.

Do a Reverse Image Search with Google Image Search

Now, this step only works for images, not for your text content. But you can go to Google. And instead of entering a text to search for, then click on the camera icon to the right, and upload the image you want to check if it has been copied.

If you find someone using your images in a way you don’t want, then reach out to them and let them know to take down the image. I’ll dive more into this in the next section.

What do I do when someone has already copied my content?

If the accident has already happened, and you’ve found your content or images on another website, then there are 2 things you can do. Either you can reach out to the website which has copied your content, or you can file a CMDA complaint. Let me dive into these 2.

Reach out to the Website’s Host or Registrar

Now before you reach out to the website host or registrar, I recommend you simply reach out to the website. Let them know they’re using your image or content illegally, and you give them 48 hours before you take further steps.

If you don’t get a reply or action within 48 hours, then look up the domain via Who.is. Here you will get an idea of where the website is hosted or information about the registrar. Then you reach out to them and ask them to take measures for their client to take down the content or image.

File a DMCA Complaint

Filing a DMCA complaint is the last resource. This you only do after you’ve tried to reach out to the website, host and registrar without luck.

DMCA, Digital Millennium Copyright Act, is a US Copyright law protecting all your content. To file a DMCA complaint, head to their website and complete the form.

You must include the following while filling out the form:

• Where the plagiarized content is (URL).
• Where your original content is (URL).
• Your contact information.
• Write a section about you haven’t authorised the use of your content and images on the website.
• Your physical or electronic signature, so confirm this.

Conclusion

To disable the right click is a big decision. It’s not something I’ve done on many websites. However, it’s super easy to do using WordPress.

Either you can use one of the two plugins, WP Content Copy Protection & No Right Click or Disable Right Click for WP. Where you simply install and activate the plugin, and then you’re protected.

If you don’t want to install plugins because you’re worried about your website’s performance, then you can also follow the manual way of adding a code snippet via your theme editor.

All in all, just remember that you can never protect yourself 100%. There will always be ways to get to your content. But as long as you follow the guidelines by adding the copyright sentence to your footer, then you’re protected by copyright law.

If someone copies your content, then reach out to them and ask them to take it down. If this fails, then the last way out is to file a DMCA complaint.

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